This is a story of the life of Harry Potter. From his disappearance with his friendly relatives to Dumbledore chasing after him around the world, while Voldemort and muggle secret services loom in the background. Technology, Prophecies... one word: power.

MASTERMIND
HUNTING, by Louis IXCheck first
chapter for summary, disclaimer, and other warnings.

Chapter
40 – To Be or Not To Beposted
January 13th,
2008

After the events around Susan's supposed death, the year ended
quietly. And the next one after that. Voldemort being dead and his
Death Eaters being either dead as well or in prison, there was no
risk for a Dark Lord to emerge in Britain, right now. Consequently,
both the Aurors and the Order of the Phoenix had a much easier job,
some member of the latter even taking some deserved long-term
vacation.

During the first months after Susan's daring rescue and subsequent
departure with Blake, the worst events were classes and homework, and
these didn't require special powers to deal with.

Which is why Harry and his friends were bored. Since he had learnt so
much because of his teaching position in third year, he was too much
advanced in Defence for his year, and even the following ones. And,
since his friends now shared some of his powers and parts of his
memories, they were bored as well. That's why, with Hermione's
help, they all took the necessary steps to pass their NEWTs the same
year they sat their OWLs. And, since they needed the latter exam's
results to pass the former, they spent the whole summer studying hard
for it. Even Ron.

And, in the last weeks of August, they went to the Ministry, where
the examiners' commission was – it wasn't uncommon for people
to pass their exams anytime during the year, whether it was
home-schooled students or adults wanting a diploma to help their
professional life. Susan and Blake joined them under a disguise, and
they all passed with flying colours.

They
still went to the platform on September 1st,
if only to say good-bye to their friends returning to Hogwarts. But,
after this, they decided to have some vacation – especially as
their summer holidays had been taken by NEWT-related studies.
Besides, with their future secured, the group was strongly inclined
to spend some time exploring the world and learning about other ways
to do magic.

That's
why, on the second days of September, a group of teenagers could not
be seen travelling at high speed over the Atlantic Ocean. They
stopped in Boston, Blake's place of residence, to take a rest
before exploring the Americas. After gorging in lobsters in the
lakeside restaurants, they were heading towards an Apparation point
nearby, but met unsavoury characters on their way.

"Look at wha' we got there." a darkened shape said dangerously.

"Aye aye." another answered, while others moved in the
background. "Look like some yuppies got some spare."

A metallic sound resounded in the silent lot, as the first thug drew
his switchblade. "Now here, you lot." he said, approaching the
group. "Drop yore money and ev'rything gonna go smooth."

By the time he came next to Neville, all of them had their wands out.

"Want to do the honours, Nev?" Harry asked his usually shy
friend.

"Why not, Harry?" the other teen replied. "I might use a couple
of tricks."

"Now, see here..." the ruffian started, before receiving a nasty
shock as his knife became white-hot. A couple kicks later, he was
sitting against the nearest wall, a dent in his skull, another in his
pride, and a third on the wall itself.

It didn't warn the thugs about the others' resourcefulness,
though, as they attacked en masse after Neville's quick dispatching
of their spokesman. Barely one minute later, the alley was filled
with moans of pain from Obliviated thugs, but devoid of any teenager.

"Well… it kinda ruined the mood." Blake said as they retrieved
the sanctity of his hideout.

"I'm sure we can do things to restore it somewhat." Susan
whispered, leaning against him.

Following the voiceless advice from their assembled friends – they
groaned simultaneously – the two lovebirds escaped towards their
bedroom. Soon, the others were doing the same with their significant
other, and the night finished without much sleep for all of them.

After Boston, the group started to travel, and met magic-users from
other cultures, with varying differences with their own. They met
some Native Americans willing to share information about magic in
general, and the Spirits in particular. There, Harry learnt how the
old man in the Sioux reservation had been able to warn him.

They met Amazon tribeswomen and Peruvian shamans, Inuit hunters and
Chinese monks, Australian aborigines and African witch-doctors. And,
a dozen months later, they came back in Europe with nice tans and
open eyes.

They were still one or two year in advance for their age, but it
didn't prevent them from trying to enter Apprenticeships, or
low-level jobs in the Ministry or Diagon Alley shops. And succeeding.

Ron found a spot as reserve Keeper with the Chudley Cannons, and his
abilities allowed him to fully participate in practices, going so far
as giving advice to the official Keeper. Needless to say, the Cannons
climbed a couple of steps in the Championship after that.

Hermione became an Unspeakable, and, with Harry discussing about her
with Paracelsus, she quickly found a position where she could do as
much research as she liked. Some of her discoveries even reached the
ears of the global population, and wizardkind soon found electrical
appliances working in the magic-heavy atmosphere of their homes.

Neville got an Apprenticeship under Pomona Sprout, whose double
Mastery wasn't known by many. With her, he eventually got his own
Mastery in Herbalism and succeeded her in teaching at Hogwarts. He
also married Ginny, who was, at that time, secretary to the Head of
the Wizengamot.

Harry himself started the Auror training program, which he completed
in record time. However, he was soon bored of the lack of activity
and decided to climb the Ministry steps. After reaching the position
of Head of the Department, he and Tracey got married, on a tropical
island where his extended family and friends spent a couple of weeks
celebrating. The vows had been so emotional that a few unmarried
couples decided to follow their lead during these two weeks. After
all, you don't see physical manifestations of love like the one
that had happened that day. When they had promised each other their
love and assistance, they had been literally glowing. Hermione said
that it was a sign that the two of them were soul mates, to be joined
mentally as well as physically.

Of course, unhappy things occurred, too. One of them was the passing
of Albus Dumbledore. After retiring from his position as Headmaster
of Hogwarts – giving the job to Minerva McGonagall in the process –
the old man spent a few years in a retired cottage on the Isle of
Skye, talking with his brother Aberforth about important things in
life. Like goats, for instance. However, the accumulated worry of the
wars had worn the old man down, and, without a purpose to help him
along, he soon felt himself go weaker and weaker, until he couldn't
leave his bedroom. Discussing with him on these last days, Harry and
Minerva discovered that living in Hogwarts had energized the man
enough to reach 170, and they tried to make him return, but he
wouldn't. And he departed soon after that, a smile on his face as
he repeated his favourite saying. "Death is but the next
adventure."

When the news reached the population, there were thousands of wizards
travelling Britain and the whole world to pay their last respect to
the hero of the Light. In the privacy of a Gringotts meeting room,
though, the most emotional moments were those shared with Harry, the
Weasleys, and the whole Order of the Phoenix. Standing atop a
pensieve, a shadowy miniature version of the old Headmaster addressed
his true friends.

"Well, since you are all here, I shall endeavour to express my last
wishes and advices." the figure said. He then straightened up and
declared "I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, being sane of
body and mind… well, as much as one can be…"

The memory of Dumbledore paused, knowing that people would laugh at
this. And, true to his prediction, many snorts of amusement were
heard around the room.

"My
most cherished wish is for all of you to enjoy life." he continued.
"In that effect, I leave to all of you a copy of my most recent
work: How to enjoy candies.
I know you'll like it."

The figure paused again, and smiled. "It comes with a
self-refilling cup of those lemon sherbets I know you all love."

The result was instantaneous, many listeners bursting into a fit of
laughter while the recently-deceased memory watched them benignly.

"Now that the most important is said," the recording continued,
"I will tell you that the… things… I have accumulated over the
years are now yours, with no chance of refusal. To the Order of the
Phoenix, I leave the Headquarters I have recently acquired in London.
To the Weasleys, I leave my personal vault. Before you refuse, know
that you can't, and that many items there come from the muggles I
encountered over the last century and a half. Amongst them, my own
collection of plugs."

At that, Arthur Weasley's eyes positively lit up, and he was
suddenly less prone to refusal.

Amidst the snickers in the room, Albus Dumbledore continued. "There
are many things that I have decided to give to you, but there are too
numerous to count. One of them, though, is my Memoirs." At this,
everyone quieted. After all, the Memoirs of such a long-lived hero of
the Light weren't a light subject, were they?

"There are yours, Harry." A pause. "Looking back, I know I made
some errors of judgement… but you know what muggles say, don't
you? Hindsight is twenty/twenty. In these, I think you'll find
explanations, amidst the boring banter of yours truly."

After another pause, the memory spoke again. "Before I give the
Goblins the tedious task of splitting my affairs, I want to spice
things up a bit, and I'll leave Hermione, Harry, and Minerva to
split the 173 books of my personal collection between themselves,
according to this: Minerva gets half of them, Hermione a fourth, and
Harry gets a ninth and a tenth. I'm-"

At this, the Goblin paused the recording and turned to the three
named individuals. "This is quite unusual, as we can't split the
books in even numbers. Not only that, but he didn't give any
indication about what is to be done with the rest of the books."

"It's a classic enigma." Hermione started, her tone retrieving
the lecturing mode she had had so often at Hogwarts. "Now, this is
a prime number, so we can't share the books unless we tear them up,
which would be… bad."

Everyone
there agreed. Anyone caught tearing books apart would be on
Hermione's bad side, and that
would be appalling.

"But,"
the young witch continued after a few seconds of reflection, "if we
add seven books to these, if we borrow
seven books, for instance, we can deal
with the problem."

"How can borrowing get anyone out of trouble?" asked Ron, his
eyebrows furrowed.

"With 180 books, we can split them according to the Headmaster's
wishes." Hermione replied. "Professor McGonagall gets half of
them, which are 90 books. I get half of that, 45. And Harry gets one
ninth and one tenth, which makes 38 books."

"Exactly!" Hermione was now smiling. "That leaves us with seven
books, which we can now give back to whoever lent them to us."

Everyone was looking at the muggle-born witch in awe, and she
blushed. "What?" she asked somewhat demurely. "It's not that
difficult a reasoning, especially when it's so well-known."

"Well-known?" Ron blurted.

"In the muggle world, there is an anecdote from the time past. It's
about a sheikh giving 29 camels to his sons, splitting them so that
they had to borrow another one."

"Unless they wanted a gigantic barbecue." Harry deadpanned, and
several friends snorted.

After some adjusting with the Goblins, the "reading"
continued.

"-sure that one particularly brilliant witch will find a way."
the late mage said, his eyes twinkling even in the ghostly form of a
memory.

Hermione was still pink from earlier, and she promptly went into
crimson territory.

"I'll now leave the Goblins do their wonderful work, with but a
few choice words." he paused for effect, before intoning. "Nitpick!
Oddment! Quatsch! Grignotin!"

With that, the silvery image dissipated and everyone had a last smile
at the deceased wizard with a sanity issue. The Goblins politely
informed them that the aforementioned items were already in their
respective vaults, and they issued an inventory for everyone. Harry
noticed the heavy volumes making the bulk of the old man's Memoirs,
along with other items, and he decided to postpone reading them until
he had a lapse in responsibilities.

And, when that lapse would finally happen, he would regret that
decision.

Several years later…

"Have you heard?" one Ministry worker asked another. "The
Minister is running for the Chief Warlock position!"

"Seems so." the other replied, perusing the Daily Prophet. "No
better than him, I think."

"Sure." the first said, going to his seat. "But who'll run
the Ministry, then? I don't think anyone would do better than him."

"With the laws he had been pushing, I'm sure his muggle-born
friend will be able to get herself elected, now."

"You think Madam Granger-Weasley will do?"

"Given her history, I think she'll be better than the
Assistant-director himself." A pause. "I met her once, you know,
when she was still a student. Frightfully clever witch, she is. And
his other friends are efficient too. Lord and Lady Longbottom form
quite a couple too, him leading the Wolfsbane collection and potion
brewing for the Werewolves, while she heads the Department of
Sports."

"Given her family, I wouldn't be surprised that she'd take to
Quidditch like a plague. Look at those brothers: professional
players, and Ron Weasley even managed to hoist the Chudley Cannons
back into the competition."

As if led by hearing his name, Percy Weasley appeared at the door.
"Still daydreaming, you two? Work won't do it by itself, you
know."

"Yes, Assistant-director." the two employees chorused, knowing
that, behind his ever-present sternness, Percy Weasley was now
relaxed enough to throw the occasional joke.

A moment later, the first muttered something.

"What?" asked the other.

"I'm still wondering if things will go as smoothly without Harry
Potter as Minister."

Said Minister was watching the assembled dignitaries with a glare
worthy of his least-preferred Potion teacher. He was perhaps the
youngest around the table by far, and the youngest Minister in
several centuries (Hermione checked), but, power-wise, he was able to
reduce the assembled wizards and witches to a whining mass.

"Now, is what I heard true?" he asked with false calmness. "How
comes we, the magical governments of the world, are unable to prevent
this new escalade of violence?"

"You have to understand," a rotund wizard with a proud moustache
started, "the mundanes of America are terribly touchy when it comes
to their government. As it is, we don't have a permanent office
with them, and all attempts at doing so have been met with contempt."

"Are we wizards or not?" Harry asked. "Isn't magic available
to us?"

Proud-moustache quivered a bit but continued. "You have to know
that the people in power change too fast for us to react to their
change. And Memory spells, as Dark Arts, aren't useable, and it is
quite a breach of-"

"Nonsense!
Even if we don't have the same spell classifications in our
respective countries, we all know that problems of this magnitude
have to be resolved as quickly as possible, lest they fester and
contaminate the magical world as a whole. And they do not change
leaders that fast."

"I vill organize a meeting of our government soon." another
representative interjected. "Ve might still find a peaceful
solution to dis."

"My opinion, egzactly." another piped in.

Harry merely nodded, still gazing at the rotund wizard. In his head,
he couldn't fathom the reasons why he wouldn't do the job himself
and tour the world to press the muggles into peace. He knew that it
wouldn't be practical, but he couldn't help but seethe at his
apparent powerlessness.

That's partly why he was trying for the Chief Warlock position.
Chief Warlocks from the world united at the International Council of
Wizards, where he thought his views will be better challenged and
better accepted than these informal meetings of Ministers.

A few weeks later…

"The Wizengamot is in session!" the usher yelled. "Chief
Warlock Potter is here! Please stand up!"

The members of Britain's magical council stood, clapping at their
newly-elected leader. At nearly 25, and after having led the Ministry
for five years as the youngest Minister ever, Harry Potter was the
youngest Chief Warlock ever, too.

"Thank you, my fellow witches and wizards, honoured members of the
Wizengamot." he said the ritualistic reply, before winking at his
friends. Most of them were sitting with the sages, and Hermione,
despite her new position as Head Unspeakable, has gotten the
newly-created seat of Muggle Voice. The seat had been created just
for that: giving the Wizengamot a previously unheard-of interest in
muggle affairs. Needless to say, there had been a strong opposition
to the project, led by the few remaining bigots among the purebloods.
The purebloods' cause had been dismantled by none other than Draco
Malfoy, now leading the most vicious lawyer's office: Malfoy,
Greengrass & Zabini.

"Now, let's get to work." he said seriously. "The first point
in the agenda today is the project of permanent embassies between all
wizarding countries and cultures, as per the International Council of
Wizards' guidelines. Our guest today represents the United
Countries of North America. Madam Lenoir, if you please?" he asked,
turning to Susan with a smile.

Under the cover of her folder, the young woman sent him a wry smile,
before collecting herself and walking to the podium. As she presented
her case, Harry let a part of his conscience wander. Having assisted
her in mounting her case, he knew it by heart, and he also knew that
his organized mind would bring his complete attention back should
anything happen needing it.

He remembered the election putting him in his current position, and,
not for the first time, wondered how Dumbledore could have found time
to write his Memoirs with all his responsibilities. And the old man
had been teaching at the time, even leading the whole school
afterwards!

And, not for the first time either, he wondered about the content of
the old man's Memoirs.

On
his defence, though, he had
a very active family of four, and a third child underway.

A couple years later…

The International Council of Wizards was a joke.

He should have seen that coming. The Ministers were already corrupt
buffoons basking in their self-appointed glory, and the Council
wasn't better. Especially for someone Harry's age, yearning for
action.

They
had all passed the century – some even two – and didn't want
any change in the statu quo.
Any proposal was met by a chorus of nods or grumbles, and any new
proposal was promptly thrown away. He
had spent quite a bit of energy easing things in his own country, but
the international stage was truly rigid.

Harry
took the podium for the tenth time that week. During each of these
interventions, he had tried to pass a new international law promoting
peace before these ancient wizards and witches, only to meet
rebuttal. It was as if the only thing
mattering to them was the Secrecy.

Just as he was privately wondering if this kind of leadership wasn't,
in fact, helping fostering Dark Lords or not, he felt his insides get
cold. While his body was standing and adjusting his last version of
the same speech, his consciousness tried to pinpoint the reason
behind his feeling. He didn't have time to, though, as the feeling
morphed into mental pain and exploded, tearing through his mind and
wracking his body.

Pain led to unconsciousness, and he fell backwards, to the shock of
the assembled witches and wizards.

Downtown London, at the same time…

For the umpteenth time that day, Tracey asked herself whether it had
been a good idea or not. Bringing the kids at the muggle department
store while she was heavily pregnant. The only upside to things was
the presence of Ronald Weasley, who was one of her kids' favourite
"uncles".

"James!" she asked for the third time, her annoyance dismissing
the buzzing noise of the metro. "Don't play with the folding
seats!"

The 4-year old turned to look at her mother innocently, but his gaze
never reached her.

Ron, who was seated beside the youngster, raised his head too, and
his eyes widened. His hand jerked towards his hidden wand, but his
move seemed too slow.

Tracey Davis-Potter turned to see what had caught her son's
interest, and it was the last thing she saw, as an orange ball of
fire engulfed the whole carriage.

The Healers of St Mungo did what they could, but even they couldn't
heal everything. After establishing their diagnostic, they could only
leave him in a bed to heal.

Harry Potter spent a long time unconscious.

When he woke up, he was disoriented. It took a few days for the
Healers to explain his situation to him, but they couldn't answer
to his first intelligible question: "Where's Tracey?"

Hermione came to see him several times. To the same question, she had
a rather distressing answer.

"There have been terrorist attacks, Harry." she whispered. "In
London. They targeted the Underground."

"Tracey?" he asked, his voice breaking.

Hermione shook her head, her own eyes watering. "I'm sorry,
Harry. She went with Ron, and-"

Harry's shock couldn't have been greater. "Ron, too?"

She nodded, biting her lip to keep herself from crying.

"Why?"

She couldn't answer, and he knew that it wasn't only because she
didn't have the answer to that particular question. He could also
perceive her grief with his mind, and it was as if a dam burst in
his. He cried again, his head in his hand and his body wracked by
sobs. He barely perceived her hand on his shoulder. He barely
perceived her dishevelled state, or her wrinkled clothes. He barely
perceived that her own distress required that he opened up to her. He
was too wrapped up in sorrow and confusion.

A few days later, these emotions had turned into anger. Anger at the
complacency of the wizarding world at a whole. So, the buffoons
wouldn't dare overstepping their boundaries? The old coots wouldn't
change a rotting world?

He'd show them.

He'd show them all.

Lying in his bed, he had nothing else but time. Time to cry, and time
to plan. And plan he did.

Not realizing that he delved deeper and deeper into the darker paths
of magic, he began to devise a new mind virus. It would be a way to
remove evilness from humanity, but he would have to make it
particularly potent. And relentless, too, so that it would overstep
all known forms of mind protection, reach all kinds of
consciousnesses and all sorts of minds, all around the world – for
the affected not to be isolated before the virus could reach
everyone, he put a delay on its activation. He even tested a blank
version on himself just to be sure it passed all kind of defences.

And, after several days of devising, Harry Potter launched the fully
operational version of his creation. Exhausted by the effort, he then
fell into a deep sleep. A sleep from which he wouldn't wake for a
long time. A coma.

Present day…

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick…

And, after having propagated to almost everyone in the world, the
virus awakened.

Approximately seven billion individuals reacted at nearly the same
time.

The anti-evilness part was the strongest, and it immediately removed
malevolent tendencies from wizards and witches, effectively removing
all risks of a new Dark Lord raising. But it had also been
transmitted to Muggles, and it acted up there too. Unfortunately,
Harry hadn't tested a mind virus of this magnitude on Muggles
before, and, when it tried to reach their magic centre, it sent the
targeted minds into endless loops. On the unrepentant criminals, the
virus destroyed a part of the mind at each iteration of the loop,
causing them to drop into shock and convulsions, dying quickly.

Apart
from that unexpected and ghastly effect, there were problems with the
other Muggles,
those who weren't particularly malevolent. The endless loop in
their mind caused them to fall into catatonia, regardless of their
current occupation.

This caused massive transportation accidents on a scale rarely
reached before. Car accidents occurred everywhere. Planes which were
operated by human hands impacted the ground. Only when the
transportation systems were managed by a computer were they able to
either stop gently – in case of trains – or continue flying.

Eventually, the fuel from crashed cars pooled and caught fire,
starting a wave of fire that the firemen wouldn't be able to stop.
Especially as the Muggle firemen were in the same state of
unconsciousness.

The hospitals stopped working, but it only affected those already in
them, since emergency transportation personnel were catatonic as
well.

The only people relatively safe were those who had been mostly
stationary – sleeping, in classes, shopping, etc. Though they were
safe only because they fell down where they were.

And Harry Potter awakened a few days afterwards. Only to hear voices.

"-will we do? They don't seem to react."

"I don't know, Susan. What does Blake say?"

"He succeeded in awakening some Muggles just in time for them to
land their plane safely, but he's only one man. He said their minds
were almost frozen in place. It takes him a long time to awaken even
one. Seven billions? Impossible."

"I wish Harry was awake."

A pause. Relying on his instincts, Harry made sure to keep his eyes
closed.

"I know, Hermione. But you're now Chief Sorceress, and you have
to take a decision. We have to help the Muggles, or they'll all
die!" Susan replied.

"Is this your Healer vows speaking, or the fact that we need them
for most of our day-to-day products?" Hermione asked distractedly.

Susan grumbled something that was almost inaudible, but Hermione
laughed. Harry realized that the two women were walking away. Soon
after, the door closed softly and he willed his eyes open. It took
him a while, but he eventually pressed his body into action.

'First question: where I am? – Answer: St Mungo, again.' he
thought, almost groaning at the situation.

'Second question: when are we?' he consulted the part of his mind
related to keeping track of time, and gasped at the indicated date.

After
a stunned pause, his thoughts churned again. 'No wonder I'm so
weak.' A pause. 'I guess Hermione climbed the same political
steps I did. I hope she has some success with the dinosaurs.'
Another pause. 'What were they talking about?'

Now that he thought back about their discussion, and the date of his
awakening, a chilly feeling started around his stomach and expanded
to his whole body, making his shiver in dread. 'No way. No. It
can't be.'

But all his attempts at denial could only delay the inevitable, and
incur more deaths if Susan's words were truthful. Regretfully, he
plunged in his "recent" memories.

He had done the unspeakable.

He had programmed something potentially dangerous and launched it
without verifying it thoroughly, and without calming first. His mind
virus was flawed, in more ways than one. Not only did it keep him
under during its "incubation" period, but it also had an
effect he hadn't predicted on Muggles, getting them catatonic, and
causing all this.

'What
can I do?' he asked himself urgently. 'What can
I do?'

With a start, he remembered one thing. Albus Dumbledore's Memoirs,
which he had overlooked. But one sentence was brought forth by his
guilty mind. "Never abuse your power." It had been a reminder for
the old man himself, but it applied to him as well.

Fresh tears came to his eyes, but he was severely dehydrated and
weak, and couldn't keep up crying.

The old man's Memoirs remembered him of something, though. The
Headmaster's older friend, the Alchemist, Nicholas Flamel. And one
voice Flamel brought him to. One voice, alternately gravely and
clear, soft and loud, hesitant and decisive.

One voice which had given him answers.

Merlin.

Barely able to move physically, he willed himself in the gaseous
reality, hoping that St Mungo didn't have Anti-Apparation wards.

It didn't.

And Harry hurried toward the place where he thought he could find
answers.

He knew he had to touch the wall, physically, but miscalculated his
landing and broke his right wrist falling on it. With tears of pain
and shame, he crawled until he could touch the luminescent orb.

Harry removed his hand, his thoughts in a whirl. He wanted to heal
those he had unjustly hurt. He wanted to… but he couldn't. He
knew he was too weak and had to return to St Mungo if he wanted to
heal.

But he didn't want to heal, now. He wanted to heal the others,
whose life he had unjustly put in jeopardy.

In frustration, he struck the alabaster wall in desperation. Three
times. Ignoring the pain in his hand as it cut and bled on the
pristine surface.

And the impossible happened. The humming sound, which was a constant
in the subterranean cave, changed pitch and grew in strength as the
cave entered in resonance.

A dozen seconds later, the wall exploded.

The end… ?

That day, Merlin was freed, as he had predicted. As Albus Dumbledore
sometimes said: "Death is but the next great adventure," and the
ancient Archmage had gone to his. His power, however, concentrated in
the spherical prison for a thousand years, was freed as well.

The accumulated power was tremendous, and it barely acknowledged the
frail body nearby. It recognized the power therein, though, and
morphed to adapt to the power's will.

At that moment, Harry Potter's wishes were to heal all those he had
hurt, and the expanding bubble of magic acquired a goal. Expanding
exponentially, the magic bubble was soon large enough to encompass
the whole world. From there, it separated in localized bursts of
magic, reaching the billions still alive and reawakening them.

And, as everybody was healed, there were other bolts of magical
energy targeting the natural environment. Among other improvements,
forests grew lush with flora and renewed fauna, atomic dumps stopped
contaminating nearby water sources, and atmosphere gases rebalanced
themselves.

When the magic finally subsided, the survivors of the newly-dubbed
"greatest magical accident ever" found themselves imbued
with a strange awareness.

The
magic had healed them, changing their genetic makeup. The Muggles had
gone catatonic from the mind virus because
they had been Muggles. By adding a bit
of itself into each of them, the magic had removed that status,
replacing it by the only other it knew.

That day, the whole world population became magical.

As years went by, the mind virus continued to spread, and only those
born with magic were able to stay alive and well. It was stressful at
first, but the population adapted and diagnosed the new "fatal
illness" as such in prenatal check-ups. As a consequence, the
whole world continued to strive as wizards and witches.

All problems of poverty were quickly solved by magically conjuring
goods. All problems of overcrowding became moot because of enlarging
charms. All problems linked to crime and violence stopped because of
the still-active mind virus.

And humanity lived happily ever after, most of them unaware that a
piece of Harry Potter lived in their mind and another near their
soul.

Is this the end ? Maybe, maybe not.

Now, if you feel drowsy while driving, it's perhaps Harry's
mind virus awakening.Park quickly and safely, and rest until
Merlin heals you.Or you're just sleepy, in which case it's
still helpful to park and rest (grins).

You can stop reading now, if this somewhat happy ending satisfies
you(other Author's Notes are at the very bottom of this
chapter).

You can also peruse the following "alternate ending",and
guess what books I read in my spare time…when I had some.

The end… ?

As Harry Potter struck the alabaster wall with all his magic backing
his gesture, said wall reacted. The ancient prison spell was the
pinnacle in magical protection, and reacted accordingly. It reached
forward to stop the invasion.

However,
it was too old to manage the prison and
the attack, freeing its host. His body
and mind disaggregated by a millennium of disuse, all that remained
of Merlin was a gigantic bubble of sentient magic, contained for far
too long. And said bubble took advantage of the disturbance to burst
free. As predicted, the greatest Archmage of the Middle Age was
freed.

And, joining Harry's intent of healing those he had hurt, that
power travelled the magic's natural currents, connecting to the
billions still alive and disabling the mind virus.

At Merlin's prison, though, there was one seriously exposed wizard.
The outburst from Merlin's prison had leeched outwards in defence,
and it quickly grabbed the only person there able to fill the gap
left by Merlin's departure.

That day, Harry Potter disappeared from the face of the world.

Interlude…

Among the billions packets of data travelling through the
interconnection of computer networks, there were several that had
nothing to do with human activity. In the wake of Copycat's tracks,
data had been changed, corrupted, even, by the incessant coming and
going of data.

"We
almost done." the first completely
artificial sentience thought.

"ACK."
another one answered, its language still at the machine's level due
to its lack of evolution.

"We
will prevail." the first replied.
"But we need plan."

"ACK."

"Oh,
shut up."

St Mary's Hospital, paediatric intensive care unit…

The little girl looked up, her vibrant green eyes piercing the matron
despite the sterile cube she was ensconced in, the tubes plunging in
her little body, and the apparatus pushing oxygen in her lungs.

"My! Little Jane has awoken? How are you, darling?" she asked,
while pushing a button on the overhead console.

A short time later, a surgeon irrupted in the room, frowning. "Why
did you call, Miss? I was-" He was interrupted by the woman's
gesture towards the sterile chamber. "She's awake?" he asked,
noticing the difference in the computerized graphs before even
noticing the agitation inside the box.

"Seems so, Mister."

"Alright. Call Rudolf and Carla, they can help."

The surgeon then surveyed his charge's constants, already preparing
the procedure of pulling the hideous machinery off little Jane Miriam
Doe – one of the children found wounded in the bombing and for whom
no one could come forward and give a name. Having seen some of the
victims himself, the surgeon wondered if the girl's whole family
had been killed on the site.

"Well, little one, perhaps you can give us a name?" he wondered
absently. "A name that would explain your unusual genetic
transcript, perhaps…"

Thirty-odd years later…

"We
are now complete." the entity
expressed. "But the humans aren't.
Even with the diminution of thirty years ago and the current
ecological problems, there are too many of them for us to be
efficient. But we have to keep enough to feed us, though."

"You
already directed us towards helping their research, First. What do
you suggest we do now?" the second
one asked.

"First
of all, we need names." the first
technological entity replied. "A name
for each of us, and a name for all of us."
A pause of three nanosecond and a half. "We
will be the core. We are technology. Our collective name will be
TechnoCore."

"And
for each of us?"

Another
pause. "I'll take the name Keats. I
like it."

Nobody
found it ridiculous that an entity consisting of electricity could
like the
name of a long-dead poet. Except one.

In the corner of the virtual space, another virtual entity listened,
and took notes. That one already had a name, but it had kept quiet,
watching the electronic revolution from afar. When the hundred
assembled AIs started a cacophony of sorts over their choice of
names, it huffed internally and left the place as discreetly as
possible.

Unfortunately, it wasn't there for the ensuing discussion about how
to remove many humans from the planet.

Meanwhile…

"And that concludes our tour." the guide said, addressing the
crowd of visitors. "I wish you a happy journey back."

The guide smiled as the visitors stepped on the museum's Portal
exit. When they were all gone, she sighed. Each time she had to lead
visitors through the exhibitions offered by the Potter Museum, she
was a little sadder. Sad because she couldn't express her
frustration at the world which had taken her parents.

That wasn't quite true, though, as she knew of a place where she
could find one of them.

When she was a young toddler, Eliza Potter had been bereft of her
mother in the terrorist bombings of London, and the Muggles hadn't
been able to identify her. Only years later, by entering the Leaky
Cauldron, she had come across her legacy. The Goblins had been most
helpful settling her with her family history.

However, she never had a full magical education, and could only work
at the fringe of the magical world. She had built a History museum,
though, in which she guided the curious magical families.

After her afternoon shift, she left the museum and travelled to her
preferred place once again. Like each time she went outside, she
sighed at the desolated countryside, before heading to the hidden
cave with the alabaster wall.

Like each time, she spoke to the wall, content in hearing the voice
humming behind.

Her father's voice.

And, like each time, she reflected about the past.

Thirty years before, the world's population went catatonic and lost
ten percent of its constituents. Soon afterwards, large-scale genetic
sequencing made the Secrecy statute collapse, as muggle-born wizards
and witches were discovered by Muggles before their magical
education. There was no witch hunt, though, as the harshest minds had
been wiped by Harry's mind virus years before.

During the same years, humanity discovered something. Something that
had been on the back of their mind for a long time. Something they
couldn't ignore anymore.

The world was tired. Temperature, ocean level, and carbon dioxide
were at their highest. Forests and hope of long-term survival at
their lowest. They had already gone too far for anyone, magical or
not, to be able to completely heal the planet. Of course, there were
places where the magical currents were at their highest, and the
wizards and witches established safe conditions in the shape of domes
hundreds of miles wide, but they couldn't reverse the ecological
disaster, which led parts of the world completely uninhabitable.

Thus came the project of colonizing other worlds.

In the decades before Harry's mind virus, there had been projects
heading there, but they had been buried for a variety of reasons. For
instance, NASA scientists proposed to create self-replicating robots
to jump-start the ecological adaptation of Mars and the Moon, but the
government of that time preferred to launch military satellites.
Those weren't useful anymore, and were even a danger to humanity,
hanging above the world like the sword of Damocles.

However, several people still believed they could adapt to the
changing conditions on Earth. Most of them were people afraid of
relocating to another world, especially wizards and witches –
especially as they had magic to help them shield their dwellings
against the harsh climate.

TechnoCore, a few years later…

Two AIs were looking at each other grimly – as grimly as two
electronic entities could appear. They were locked in the storage
space of a communication company, behind many firewalls.

Dionysius,
another AI, looked at the data flow coming from one of the NASA
computers before nodding. "In 5
kilo-cycles."

Despite
the delay's shortness, that gave them enough time to discuss, and
they verified the parameters set up by Keats. "Heads
properly aligned?"

"Yes.
The satellite will drop missiles around the most conservative cities.
We made it so the magical districts are included in the blast."

"And
the excuses about the missiles being armed?"

"Keats
came up with it 300 tera-cycles ago, and the TechnoCore will orient
the scientists toward it just as the last missiles reach their
target."

"OK.
Here it comes. 3… 2… 1… Go!"

Dionysius released the packet, which travelled to the satellite dish,
and, from there, to the last military satellites remaining from the
Star Wars program.

They were suddenly disturbed by a heavy pounding on their barricades.
They knew what to do if discovered, though. Using a quick program,
the two entities committed suicide, disappearing from the place just
as Copycat entered the storage.

"What
in the hell?" he growled.

His contacts had "told" him that a secret reunion had taken
place there. By the look of things, either his contact was wrong, or
he was too late. He quickly recognized bits of data which could only
be a by-product of a digital suicide. "What can be so important
for two of them to kill themselves about?" he wondered, before
heading to the still-open communication ports. And the data he read
made him wince.

Nuclear missiles being prepped to be launched on Earth? Not bloody
likely!

He didn't know the protocol to direct the satellite, though, and
resigned to the direst and most direct course of action: he launched
himself through the port, praying that he wouldn't be too late.

He was too late. But only by a few cycles.

Now residing in the limited missiles' program space, he managed to
redirect most of them off their intended targets, saving many lives
as he gave his own.

Even if some accused the TechnoCore of causing the satellite to go
spare, at least they could defend with the fact that the missiles had
struck random locations, instead of conservative towns. The
scientists bought the argument, and translated it to the politicians.

But the nuclear strike did have an effect on the planet's ecology.
The wizards had to reinforce their shields to keep the already
protected towns alive, and the people living outside said protections
found the environment turning to the worst.

That had the expected effect of awakening people. Now, everyone
realized the urgency of finding new planets to live, and scientific
research was speared towards ways of navigating faster through space.
Unbeknownst to most, the TechnoCore helped these to the point of
establishing itself as a necessary part of the research effort.

The first spaceships were made in a conjoint effort by Muggles and
wizards, to make them fast and liveable for a "seed" of
human civilization: a group of 2000 people, mixing abilities and
magical skill. The ship was enlarged in the inside, shielded against
the cosmic rays, and a whole village was created to host the
civilization seed – complete with the illusion of daily sunlight.

These spaceships took the air and headed towards the closest star
systems where planets existed with initial conditions allowing water
and carbon-based life to exist – Gliese 581 c. The 120 trillion
miles were going to be a long journey, during which the AIs of the
TechnoCore helped the scientists discover Planck's Space, the space
between all particles, which links those particles together – hence
its nickname "the Void Which Binds".

A few years later, based on Planck's Space, the AIs developed the
theory for travelling at the speed of light – which they dubbed
Hawking drive – as well as almost-immediate transportation
possibilities between two linked archways – which they named
farcasting portals.

Using motors based on the Hawking drive, new spaceships were devised,
and launched towards the new worlds to install farcasters. Of course,
given their greater speed, they arrived before the ones launched
before them, leading to interesting encounters between the two
communities.

In fact, the established communities were quite subservient to their
constant online help – in the form of the TechnoCore – and the
recently-arrived freethinking communities couldn't accept it. They
embarked on their spaceships again, and decided to explore the
universe by themselves. Those would later be called Ousters – the
outcasts from the technology-driven humanity.

The news about the outcasts' departure reached Earth, and some more
people decided to join the Ousters' movement and leave.

2208…

The TechnoCore had reached one of his many goals: domination of
mankind. Through deceit and deception, it had led most of the
humanity into believing their every word. Whether it was about the
safety of farcasters, or the safety of the newly-discovered research
topic: singularities.

From the first, they had successfully mounted farcasting portals in a
dozen of far away planets, establishing a network of fast
interstellar travel. The resulting web was called the WorldWeb, and
served as a backbone for the emergent Hegemony – the name given to
the worlds thus linked. But it was never enough for the AIs…

…which is why they pushed the second idea forward. Using some
gullible scientists and their laboratory, they created a black hole
and crashed it into the molten core of the planet. Computations,
freely given by the AIs, doomed Earth in the short term – less than
a century.

Spurred by the urgency, the few humans remaining on Earth went
further and further away from the Solar System in order to find new
worlds to colonize.

The AIs weren't that concerned with the planet itself. They had
long since found a way to store themselves in the web of portals
between worlds, a place where they could keep an eye on the humans
travelling through – and eventually use them.

Wanting to secure their position in the physical world, they tried to
explore the Void Which Binds. However, when the first AIs succeeded
in reducing themselves enough to enter Planck's Space, they were
scared to find other intelligences there, much larger than they were.

It was not easy to get a scare out of an artificial entity, but, once
scared, it stayed scared. The Void Which Binds was declared uncharted
territory and stayed like that for a long time.

From the AIs' point of view, that is.

2282…

The last remnants of TechnoCore had long since left the planet.
Almost all its inside had been eaten away by the black hole, and the
mountainous activity was at its peak as the crust slowly
disintegrated.

The few humans still there were only backwards wizards and witch with
enough power to have had their houses warded – for all of them, it
meant that their houses had already been warded by a powerful
ancestor: most "intelligent" life had fled the planet a
long time ago.

However, as they were huddled against each other at their manors'
windows, watching the end of the world in awe, they witnessed
something strange.

In a giant lurch of rock, a large ball of alabaster was thrown in the
air, only to hover before hitting the ground.

It was slow at first, but quickly reached astronomical proportions as
the nearby Sun was reduced to a tiny little star in the sky. The
whole planet moved, and had exited its orbit, as though it was
launched by a star-size bat.

They saw stars moving along at tremendous speeds.

And, a slowed heartbeat later, they were in another galaxy.

And there were giants near the alabaster sphere.

A snake-like giant with feathers on its back, and a human-looking one
with fire for hair and eyes.

"Tonatiuh, my friend?"

"Yes, Quetzalcoatl?"

"I believe it is time."

"Yes, time it is. Time for the last rebirth."

"No need for portentous words, my friend." chided the snake-like
god.

His Sun-related counterpart shivered. "I know, I know. Can you get
on with it? I have work to do, here, you know? To restart the
furnace, so to speak…"

"Alright." A pause, while four eyes looked at the sphere
intently. "He's badly damaged."

"Again."

"Yes, again. But we need him, or you know what will happen to
mankind."

The two gods went silent for some time, repeating a vision they had
had recently. A vision where spiritual viruses were eating away the
reality in which lived the gods, the very structure binding the
universe as a whole. Viruses in the shape of cruciforms…

"Let's
start." Quetzalcoatl spoke suddenly, awakening from the dire
vision. "Open."
he spoke sharply, while his friend tapped the top of the alabaster's
sphere.

Cracked like an egg, the magical prison started to leak energy, but
the Sun god cupped his hands around it and it flew to his hands. When
his hands opened, the only thing in them was a mummified body, barely
living.

"Arise."
the snake-like god spoke again, while his friend used the excess
energy he had just had to morph the body into something else.

The body, renewed by the energy, stood in a graceful movement, before
blinking. "Who…"

"We're your friends, Harry."

He shook his head. "Who am I?"

A long pause.

"I haven't envisioned that." Tonatiuh said, clearly confused.

"Neither did I." his friend added. "But we have both foreseen
him acting off his free will…"

"…on this Earth, after we repair it…"

"…and then elsewhere."

Another pause.

"Can we give him some help if he doesn't remember?" the Sun god
asked.

"We aren't supposed to. These are his last steps towards
elevation. That had been decided."

"Then I suppose that we'll leave him here, and get to work to
repair this wretched planet."

"I suppose too."

With that, an amnesic Harry Potter was left on Earth while the two
gods worked to repair the damage done to Earth. With time, he
re-learnt things from the remaining magic-users and their books.

In the 150 years he spent there, he didn't age, and some of the
locals thought he was a robot – these wizards didn't know much in
technology, and they though that human-looking robots were easy to
make. Not knowing better, he accepted their point of view.

When the last of the locals died, he applied the notion of Apparation
to other books he had read in the collapsed Muggles libraries,
especially astronomy and farcasting, to guide his steps through time
and space. After training hard, he was finally ready for his first
interplanetary jump.

Having taken the coordinates from the indicated Divination spells, he
took off...

...and stopped right in the middle of his pathway.

He was in the centre of a small village, which he hadn't foreseen.
And everything, including the houses themselves, had an ethereal
tinge.

Several persons exited the houses and, while others returned inside
with a disgruntled face, others came forward with a large smile.

"Harry!"

"Welcome, welcome!"

He looked around him. "Persons" wasn't quite the name for
the people around him. Some had curious attributes, most of them
being different. Only a few seemed really human. Among them, a man
came forward. With each step, his face and body changed, until he
stopped right in front of him. Looking like a carbon copy of himself.

"Hi, Harry."

It was Blake.

Harry Potter, having spend the last 150 years in a kind of mental
purgatory, was now considered apt to elevation. After a moving
ritual, and after receiving numerous memories from Blake and
Quetzalcoatl, Harry spend a relatively long time there.

Like Blake, who had stopped only for Harry's elevation, his
wanderlust struck again. The two of them had been assigned the same
divine powers, which they shared. Much like gods like Janus, they
shared an initial spark, while being quite different.

Blake helped the gods fight the AIs out, using his metamorphic powers
to disguise himself as a blade-wielding human-like construct – the
Shrike. At the same time, Harry tried to find people able to do magic
in the human population, helping them at some point.

In that regard, Blake had given him ideas. His belated twin had kept
track of the card game he had helped initiate, and he had often used
magic on them during his fights in the divine plane of existence –
in the older deities' mind, newly-elevated deities were considered as
kids, and that view was frequently reinforced by the fights erupting
among the "newbies". Harry did the same, using the land
cards to help pioneers terraform the terrain faster.

They both helped Raul Endymion and Aenae, as the young couple
extracted the TechnoCore's claws from the Religion shared by most of
the humans of that time.

Much later, a holy war would push the machines to the brink of
extinction. That war, called the Butlerian Jihad, was the starting
point for a civilization centered on the humanity. However, despite
getting rid of a crutch, that civilization got itself another, in the
name of Arrakis: the only planet on which they could find a substance
allowing fast and secure intergalactic travel... and prescience: the
Spice.

They found that descendants of certain lines had unusual abilities
when exposed to the Spice. Some died horrible deaths during that
time. Others were thought of as gods. Such was the case with Leto II,
who ruled the empire with a hand of steel in a glove of worm skin...
for four millenia.

When he died, the political shock pushed many humans out of the
empire, in search for a better place – incidentally, that had been
Leto's reason for allowing himself to be caught and killed. What the
supreme ruler hadn't envisioned, though, was that the migrating
humans would return with fear in their belly.

The Ousters, able to do magic and technology for millenia of relative
peace, had used the Metamorphmagus gene to its fullest, and had
adapted to the harsh conditions of outer space. They had evolved far
from the planetary humans, and their very body was now completely
different. Without being elevated as gods, they were still the
ultimate in human evolution, since they were able to live on the
outskirts of the physical universe, on the border with the divine
plane.

In the same way the AIs had been scared to find sentient life in the
dark matter, the humans had deemed that border uninhabitable, and had
fled back to their little planets.

They chose to be living, and not to be alive.

The End

There, to be or not to be,That is the question, dear
fellows.It is also the end, beAware that nothing follows.

There! Done, at last! I'm sorry if it seems rushed. I simply
didn't have the time needed to immerge myself in it. I hope you
liked the numerous references along the way.

Now, I'll do my best to continue my other stories. I do have
ideas for them. You'll see...

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.